


My First Burn

by classicallybookish



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, F/M, I'm sorry for the feels, Is a spoiler alert needed when it's historical fact?, This wouldn't leave me alone and I had to get it out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:13:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27167740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/classicallybookish/pseuds/classicallybookish
Summary: Inspired by 'First Burn', I wrote a narrative approach.
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton/Elizabeth "Eliza" Schuyler
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19





	My First Burn

**Author's Note:**

> There's historical debate on when Eliza found out about the Reynolds affair. For this piece, I moved forward with the assumption that she found out in July when gossip started becoming rampant about Hamilton's connection with James Reynolds and Alexander began drafting the Pamphlet. She left their home with their children to her parent's plantation in Albany shortly after, then returned sometime in September. That's how this story was written, at least. William Hamilton was born August 4, 1797; the Reynolds Pamphlet was published August 25, 1797. Specific details were gleaned from Ron Chernow's biography and 'My Dear Hamilton' by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie. Obviously, the lyrics I incorporated belong to Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Alexander had not seen Eliza for a full day.

When he’d arrived home from a particularly grueling cabinet meeting, sweet 13-year-old Angelica had brought him a plate from supper for him to enjoy in his study. He had just gotten William, not yet two months old, to doze in the cradle while he read aloud a few essays-in-progress.

Now that all the children were asleep and his eyes were burning from reading, Hamilton seeks her out. Stepping softly, his feet take him toward the glow emanating from a modest drawing room near the back of the house. It wasn’t used often, too cramped to host their usual number of guests, much less their passel of children. It had turned into a study of sorts for the mistress of the home.

And there, he found her. Perched on the floor, silhouette lit by the fireplace among a sea of papers sat his wife, his Betsy. The childhood nickname only allowed by family; a name he cherished. 

He hadn’t seen her cross-legged on the floor since before she’d had children, never having much chance to lounge once Philip had entered the world. But before, they’d often spent time before a fire just like this one, heads bent together in close discussion while eyeful chaperones sat far enough away to allow a semblance of privacy.

What looked to be old letters lay in each hand, deep eyes soldiers had told tales of during the Revolution roving over every page before flipping to the next. An ornate sewing box lays open closeby, one that had been a staple of every home they’d lived in.

A smile tugs at his lips. He wonders if this was a similar view she had been afforded of him over the years; the nights he didn’t sleep whilst glued to his desk, focusing only on the newest project at hand. If his gaze were that scrutinizing, if he had been so wrapped up in work he missed her in the same room with him.

Since she and the rest of their brood had arrived home from an extended visit to his in-laws earlier that week, she had spoken civilly in front of the children - but little else. Their bedroom door remained locked to him.

He’d taken pains to avoid making noise tonight, basking in her presence. He longed for her melodic voice, her sweet touch, her kind reassurances. Things he had no right to desire anymore. But if he could just be in the same room as her for even a brief amount of time, that would be enough to sate him.

Having thought himself invisible, her voice startles him. “I saved every letter you wrote me.” One such letter sinks to her side, another is chosen from the pile. He opens his mouth when Eliza continues without looking up. “From the moment I read them, I knew you were mine.” A whisper of a smile floats across her lips. “You said you were mine. . . I thought you were mine.”

She inclines her head towards him slightly without meeting his line of sight.

“Do you know what Angelica said when she read what you'd done?” 

Anxiety rises to the surface of his mind at the oblique reference to the events that had landed them across the room from each other.

Waving a letter in her sister’s familiar hand, she scans it to find a specific line. “She said, ‘You have married an Icarus. . . he has flown too close to the sun.'" It drops from her fingers into the fireplace.

His feet move of their own accord but her stony tone stops him in his tracks. “Don’t take another step in my direction.”

Freezing in his spot, he looks up to find those dark eyes boring into him. In the dim firelight he can make out the blue-ish circles signaling lack of sleep - and not just because of the childbirth she was still recovering from. A birth he was not present for - not even in the same city for. Because of his transgressions.

“I can't be trusted around you.” She gestures with the stack of papers in hand. “Don't insult either of us by thinking you can talk your way into my arms.” The stack descends to the fire, the papers crackling as they are consumed.

Genuine confusion drives him to ask, “Betsy, what are you doing?”

Matter of factly, as if she was answering one of their children’s questions about French or mathematics she replies, “I'm burning the letters you wrote me.” 

A chill runs down his spine.

“You can stand over there, if you want.” Spoken as if asking a guest to make themselves at home; the politeness of a hostess, not the affinity of a wife. “I don't know who you are. I let the confidence of our marriage fool me into thinking I knew you intimately. I was never the dreamer of the family. But I’ve been living in a fantasy of a marriage instead of the reality. Now that this has come to light, I suspect I have much more to learn about you. There must be other painful revelations lying in wait.”

Once again she leaves no space for the rhetoric so hasty to his mouth.

“With that in mind, I'm re-reading your letters.” She holds a sheet with faded ink above the flame and keeps hold of it when it catches, bringing it close to her. “Watching them burn.” Observing with detached interest, she turns the page to and fro as the flame eats away the ‘My dearest, Eliza’ he had scrawled at the top all those years ago. Flicking it onto the logs before the flame can reach her, her attention turns back to the disarray surrounding her.

Moving a heap of papers into her lap, her face contorts at something their absence reveals on the floor. The mound slides to the side as she stands and snatches the offensive object up. As soon as the cover comes into view, his heart plunges into his stomach at the title he had penned and published only a few weeks prior.

She flips through the first few pages, striding back and forth by the hearth. Her tone is even, though it carries a bite. “You published the letters she wrote you. . . telling the whole world how you brought this girl into our bed.” The ripping of paper from binding tore through the room. One, two, ten pages gone from the pamphlet, curling in her hand.

The remaining 80 or so pages drop to the ground, allowing her to ball the torn ones firmly before throwing it at his feet. “In clearing your name, you have ruined our lives.”

Heavily, the accusation hangs in the dead air.

Delicate hands run through her dark hair, the firelight accentuating a handful of silver strands he can’t recall seeing before. Had they been there the last time he’d threaded his fingers into her locks? Or had he overlooked them? 

A single tear tracks down her cheek before she furiously wipes it away.

“Heaven forbid someone whispers, ‘He's part of some scheme’. Your enemy whispers, so you are compelled to scream in return? Sordid rumors and gossip are commonplace in the political realm. I don’t understand what possessed you to take it this far.”

She’d begun gesturing wildly and pacing, paying no heed to the candlestick that had fallen when her hip bumped a side table. The lit candle tumbles as well; a small flame flickers on the rug.

He shouts, “Betsy!” before falling to a knee, patting the flame away with his hands. Exhaling his panic, he starts “You have to be careful, what-”

As if he’d never started speaking, Eliza proceeds. “I know all about whispers.” She leans down at the waist, bringing them physically closer than they’d been in months - since the dead of night when he’d confessed in July. The dark eyes he'd devoted sonnets to pierce into him now. “I see how you look at my sister.”

He feels his eyes go wide, can’t stop his mouth from dropping open incredulously. Her pupils dart between his own eyes, seeking out an answer to the question she had never dared to pose.

On his inhale, she practically snarls.

“Don't,” she spits, the singular word dripping with venom.

He sighs heavily, eyes slipping shut. “Betsy-”

“ _Stop_ calling me that. I’m not the girl you wooed all those years ago in a ballroom.” A faraway look passes over her face. “17 years. . . and it only took you 11 to fall into a damning affair.”

Swallowing down the hot retort that first came to his tongue he murmurs, “I never wanted to hurt you.”

Hamilton is certain he’d never heard Eliza scoff before, least of all at him. He didn't care for it now. “What did you intend then, Alexander? Did you think you could bed a married woman when I was pregnant with our fifth child without my taking offense to it? That I’d tap you on the cheek and immediately forgive the, the- splintering of our wedding vows?”

He bites the inside of his cheek, eyes trained on the carpet still beneath his knees. He deserves this.

“That’s assuming those vows weren’t broken before Maria.”

Resolve breaking, Hamilton’s head snaps up. Anger churns in his gut at the affront to his honor.

But Eliza was waiting for this reaction - but instead of vindication, he only sees pain. An agony just begging him to voice that very thought. Whatever god that was above granted him the wisdom to keep his mouth shut.

“Contrary to what you and everyone else believes, I'm not naïve. I have seen women around you. The night we met you had your eye on every person in the room wearing a skirt; weighing your options before you zeroed in on me. You think I don't see how women fall for the charms that so easily fall from your lips.” A humorless laugh cold as a knife slices through the air before she repeats, “Oh, your charms.”

“I’m so sorry, Be-” He trails off at her distasteful gaze aimed down at him. “I’m sorry. . . Elizabeth.”

“Get up, Alexander. You’ve never posed fealty before; it rings hollow now.”

Rocketing to his feet he rushes forward to grasp her shoulders. “What else do you want from me? I’d lay prostrate if it’s what you desired but you’ve yet to tell me what you need to hear from me.”

Shrugging out of his hold, she turns her back to him. “I’ve heard enough of your words to last a few lifetimes.”

Stillness stifles the space between them.

Several minutes pass marked by the grandfather clock standing sentry in the hall.

Eliza’s most powerful weapon had always been her silence; a refusal to give him the ammunition he coveted most. A compelling weapon.

Unable to stand it any longer, he scratches the back of his neck as if to rake away the pain. “Well?” he inquires of the quiet room. “What are we to do now?”

Fingers rub her temples before dragging down her face, resting to cover her mouth. They muffle her unsettling words. “I. . . I erase myself from the narrative.” Half-turning back to the mess of their love on the floor, her face is mostly obscured by shadows.

Worry clutches his lungs. “What does that mean?”

“From the night we first danced in New Jersey, you’ve insisted your accomplishments ensure the penning of your name in books chronicling history. . . well -” Her quick movements are alarming - out of character - when she darts forward, grabbing as many pages as her hands can hold. Standing close enough to read some of the dates, he notices some of the sheets in her grip are letters he had sent her while she was away the past weeks - those that had gone unanswered. The flames behind her now, she holds his attention resolutely, back as stiff as her defiance. “Let future historians wonder how Eliza reacted when you broke her heart.”

It was the most direct statement she’d made of her heartache in the time since this chasm had opened between them. He found himself desperate for her to condemn him - to present a sentence he could argue against, persuade her away from. Alas, an argument could not be made if she didn’t start one.

“You have thrown it all away, stand back, watch it all burn.”

The letters flutter down. Sparks spray up, protesting against the weight of the scores of pages threatening to either quell or fuel the flames. Eliza continues to scoop more and more tangible tokens of their relationship from the floor into the fireplace.

As the flame is fed, the room becomes more illuminated. As does his wife’s face - her piqued eyebrows, the hollow cheeks, the pale complexion that once shone in vibrancy. Had he done this to her? When had those lines on her forehead become more prominent? Had she been feeding herself along with the rest of the household? With a heart-wrenching miscarriage in the recent past and another childbirth, could she have been weakening before his eyes? Had he become blind to her wellbeing?

Embers fly as her inattentiveness grows. She clutches the box storing their letters and other treasures he’d gifted over the course of nearly two decades. Upending it, everything plummets into the hearth; with the new kindling, flames leap beyond its boundary. Then she drops the box itself. 

Her skirts were too close, a flame could catch-

“Eliza!” Alexander leaps forward. Snatching a discarded cloak from the sofa he begins to smack the fire at her legs. Only for a moment did he get a glimpse of her face as he took the hurried steps toward her - the fear at his sudden approach was not lost on him.

Having been too minute to cause much damage, he had the issue suffocated quickly. Resting back on his heels, he reaches to finger the scorched linen. Her flinch at his touch prods at the ache in his chest, but for his own sake he had to be sure her skin was not burned.

Dousing that worry he glances to her, only to find her face twisting in. . . grief. Grief being the only appropriate descriptor. Her shoulders began to shudder so fiercely, he feared she may collapse. For the first time in what felt like eons, she allowed herself to fall into his arms. He cradles her as she weeps. 

His treasure, his angel, his Eliza. The best of wives and women. Her proximity has a greater effect on him than he anticipated, only mustering the strength to nestle his nose in her hair, mouth kisses against the crown of her head. Overcome with sentiment, his own tears mingle with hers.

Though they bubble to the surface, he forces words away. Instead, he settles on gentle shushes and humming as he rocks them back and forth. His ink-stained fingers twirl threads of her hair, marveling in the softness.

A sniff drifts up from the wetness accumulating on his shirt. “Alex. . . I gave you family.”

Just like the evening he’d first confessed his sin, his soul fractures anew.

Eliza pulls back just enough to see his face. “I gave you _my_ family. The moment we wed, you had parents, siblings, cousins. The first tangible relatives you had on this continent - you’re no longer an orphan. And then I gave you children, a family of your own. Those who will bear your name and image for generations.” Her volume falls as if now speaking to herself.” But none of that satisfied you. What would satisfy Alexander Hamilton, I wonder?”

A thousand placations race through his mind but she doesn’t allow him to give them life. Heaven knows he’d already made countless attempts to coerce her forgiveness. If her will did not bend now, he dreaded the possibility that it never would.

“Wh-” Her voice cracks and she takes a few more shuddering breaths before starting again. “When the time comes, when they ask questions. . . you must explain to the children the pain and embarrassment you put their mother through. You will be the one to tell them what you did.”

The children. Philip at 15 was old enough to understand the tension between his parents, to interpret the gossip on the streets. But Angelica, Alex Jr., James, Johnny, sweet baby William - even Fanny, who they housed and loved as if she were their own daughter - they would hear the story one day. Playmates in the schoolyard would use taunts gleaned from adult conversations held above their heads.

Hamilton gulps around his pride. “I promise, I will. Hopefully what I’ve contributed to this world will outweigh any stain this may leave on their name.”

Hands that had only displayed her devotion since 1780 fist in the front of his shirt. With strength he thought her incapable of, she shakes him several times. “When will you learn that those children are your legacy? _We_ are your legacy.”

The fists push against his chest and release his shirt, forcing him back several steps. Rarely was he rendered speechless, but the passion in her voice strikes him as effectively as her hand would have.

“A legacy is not just the work one leaves behind. It’s the people you leave behind. Your words may live on for a few decades, if you’re lucky. But how long will we be around? Who will be questioned for knowledge of what you were like? How many friends do you have left after alienating half the population of New York City, Philadelphia, and now the District?

“Your children will say they didn’t know you because you were never home. Their children may never meet you if you continue to stir up dissent like you are wont to do. What do you think I have left to say about you?” Anxious fingers fidget with the pearl-encrusted pendant around her neck - the gift he’d given her the evening before their wedding. It strikes him curious that she would be wearing a keepsake of their union in a time like this. “Do you even care what I think anymore?”

Voice thick with emotion, he chokes out, “Of course I do.”

Regaining her composure, the mask she’d worn up until this evening assumes its place. A few brusque motions shake ashes from her skirt onto his shoes.

“If you think Elizabeth Schuyler’s legacy is only being Mrs. Colonel Alexander Hamilton, allow me to disabuse you of that notion. I am not an accessory to you.”

Dumbfounded, he can only stare. Could that truly be what she thought of him? Of her stature in his mind's eye?

An infant’s cry breaks the silence. Eliza’s shoulders droop ever-so-slightly before squaring again - though not rapidly enough to escape his attention. “If you can excuse me, _sir,_ I have a child to feed.” Measured steps feel like bounds as she approaches the threshold, stepping over what pages were left.

“I love you, Eliza.” It’s all he can offer. All he, in his brokenness, has left.

She pauses in the doorway and hope peeks through his volatile storm of emotions.

With a whisper she responds, “I left fresh bedclothes on the chaise in your study.” 

And she was gone.


End file.
